I wanted to announce this at the last day of class, but that would have been rude, and the small group of you who feel like you have to hang out more with those who leave would have felt unsatisfied if i had just said “peace” and thrown my stuff in a car. No I wanted to leave the right way this time.

About a month and a half ago I came across the notion that God gives people talents and abilities in life. Some people He blesses with artistic abilities, some comedic, and some social. In my life God has blessed me with comedic and artistic abilities. These abilities are used some here at SLCC, comedic more so than artistic, although I do do some graphics now and a again.

Then in conjunction with this I had a night where I broke down before God. A lot of things were going wrong that day and I needed some time to just talk to Him. As I was talking to Him I prayed something that astounded me even as I said it. This is the excerpt from my Journal:

“I will go where you say go, I will do what you say do.”

As soon as I said those words I realized that I was often very quick to jump to a conclusion of what God wants me to do, instead of waiting and listening for what he wants me to do. So I took my closed mind and plugged ears and opened them. I asked God for guidance as to what to do in life, where to go, how my ministry should look. And He said, don’t go back to SLCC, go use the talents I gave you to glorify me.

At at first, like most of you are likely saying right now, I was wondering why God would tell me not to go back to Bible college. It sounds weird right? I began to think who I was just the short four months ago that I came here. I was a troubled kid, who was lost and confused and angry. Me and the Father did not have a good relationship, and He was earnestly seeking me out. My whole life has changed in four months. The way I think, the way I interact, the way I behave. God totally overhauled my life, so that I would serve Him forever. It is the willingness to allow a total change in my life that I found in my despair that allows Him to work so swiftly.

I dont want to sound like I am saying that I am perfect now. I know I am far from that, and I am still broken. However God has shown me how to find beauty in the broken. How to find love for others in the middle of the anger that sometimes curses my brain. He changed me and I cannot run now.

Theres another part of this story where God moved in my life. After I knew I wasn’t supposed to come back I started looking at where to go. I started praying “God show me where to go.” After several weeks of praying and looking I stopped, turned off my computer and said to God “God, I suck at finding your will for me. There are a thousand or more colleges I can go to, where do you want me.” The next day I found out that because my brother graduates this spring from the University of Chicago, I will lose half of my federal financial aid and all of my federal grants. God had made it clear because I can now only afford one college.

I know this post may draw some adverse reactions from those of you who know me. From my friends back home who will be glad I am coming home, to my friends here at SLCC who are sad to see me go. To those of you who are reading this and laughing inside with glee that I will not be here next semester. I am aware that you exist, I pray for you everyday, and I pray for my patience and understanding and ability to love you. There will be those who will be indifferent, those who wonder why they didn’t use their time better, don’t worry just skip to the next paragraph. Whatever the case is, if you like me, love me, hate me, or just don’t even care, I love you. You are a creation of our Lord and Savior and regardless as to how you have treated me to my face or to my back, I love you.

This is not a goodbye letter to you. This is a letter of extended absence. One day we will all meet again in His presence. I plan on coming back to visit from time to time, I have friends here who I never wish to disregard like I did for the year that I was gone before.

Until That Day Comes
-Josh Grider

Run,
Run until you can no longer run,
Run until your blood seeps into your socks,
And your feet feel like rocks,
Run until your legs give out,
Then crawl until you cannot breathe,
Because you’ve got blood on your knee’s.

But she is waiting for me,
Somewhere some place their she will be,
Staring at me with those eyes that gleam,
And it will feel just like a dream.

Ive got to find where she is hiding,
Because every second away I am dying,
Like a tree with no sunshine.

And couldn’t swallow,
Just sit and watch the sky,
While I choked and died,
Then there landed a swallow.

Right on my nose,
It happened just then,
That i wondered who sent him,
Who i wont ever know.

He looked into my eyes,
And spoke with a smile,
About a bridge of miles,
Saying “You wont die.”

I coughed and wheezed,
Until the lump came out,
It was real without a doubt,
That it wasn’t what it seemed.

That it was an egg,
With a crack horizontal,
And possibly im mental,
But it wasn’t regular.

It began to hatch,
And out came a beak,
One that belonged on a beach,
A Turtle! What a catch.

He grew before my eyes,
And turned to face me,
He was as tall as a tree,
He said “You can’t die.”

Then he was gone,
And the night came around,
It has such a sound,
Almost like a song.

Frogs in the trees,
Crickets behind the car,
And something more bazaar,
Something I couldn’t see.

In that short time,
I knew what I was,
I was sure it was because,
The sparrow had lied.

I danced to the sky,
Sick with my insight,
Into my late demise,
No, he hadn’t lied.

You can’t die,
If your already dead,
Its what the swallow said,
You won’t die.

A song so that you will hear what I hear,
That you will look at me and see my heart,
How words trickle and run like a painters brush,
How they all are aching to reach out and grab,
Onto any hint of something between us,
Any tiny speck of a pale blue dot that is a habitable planet,
In a solar system that is so completely resistant,
To all forms of any intelligent life,
I just want to see a little light,
At the end of the tunnel.

I used to be the star,
Never sat a game out,
A winner a champion a leader,
But I got tired of all the fame,
And in all the star struck shame,
I took myself out like a worthless lout,
Now I’m handing the next best water,
Like a silent waiter.

But this grade C restaurant is leaving a bad aftertaste,
And when I take my mind away from what I wanted,
I start to let you creep into my head,
And all the times that there was innocence turn,
Just like dancers in the hall,
I quickly begin to learn,
That what I said I will have to eat it all,
So maybe—

No.
Forget that noise.

I’m afraid,
I am afraid that I will miss out,
On something that i was supposed to have,
Something I was supposed to need to be,
When was the last time I wasn’t scared?
When was the last time I forgot to do my hair?
To take a shower and not put on cologne,
To screw brushing my teeth three times day,
And to stop trimming my nails and saying that its not gay,
When was the last time I never cared?

Why should I give two flips?
If you think I shouldn’t piece my lip,
If she says that my hair would be ugly,
If my jeans aren’t as skinny as his,
If I don’t look my most fly everyday,
Why should I care the tiniest bit?

Maybe I care for a one reason,
One person,
One set of eyes,
One heart beat,
One smile,
One laugh,
One hand to hold in mine,
One dream I have.

Falling like I just got dumped,
Like we just had that talk in the Walmart parking lot,
Like you just yelled that “its over” and hung up on me,
Like I went to visit you at work,
Like you told me you loved me and then said you had to talk to a friend,
Like  I asked you who was it going to be and you walked away,
Like I stayed up all night talking to you only to hear your voice never again,
Like  we spent a month playing ping pong,
Like I found out you never really liked me,
Like you felt when I called you after spring break.

Staring

Staring like you just drove off,
Like that time when I kissed you in the infield and said my goodbyes,
Like that time when  I told you I would be back in a week,
Like that time when I watched you leave with all my dreams.

Stop Breathing

Stop breathing like when I leaned in too close,
When we met in the stairwell of the Hyatt,
When we fought after doing the dishes at your parents house,
When we stood outside of youth group,
When we went to the drive in and you lost your earring.

And while you are all these thing,
You are also the smoke from my lips in the cold winter storm,
The laugh that interrupts  everyone at every table,
The hug that breaks the pattern of being love disabled.

But I’ve never even had a hug from you,
Something that comes around in my fever dreams,
Cutting through reality like only the truth,
You are the eyes that make me cry and make me scream.

You are my dream,
The dream that one day things will change,
I will leave my home and call you pain,
Then one day, things will change.

But what of the chance that you don’t like what you are?
What if you wake up and stare at that scar?
And it turns and twists under the light,
And hangs in your mind all night.

What happens when you no longer love yourself?
When your body revolts and your mind melts,
When you cry and scream and drive your car way too fast,
And then you dream that you live in a place of the past.

What happens when you quit drinking and eating and caring for yourself?
When you look in the mirror and see nothing but a shelf?
A shelf that is holding all the cares of the world,
All the anger and hollowness of when mom and dad fight,
All the monsters and big brothers who sneak in your room at night.

And when you wake up screaming drenched in sweat,
When your no longer breathing but your heart beat is so fast,
Are you really feeling everything that you know you can,
Are you trying to numb all the mistakes and worries with cold showers?
With a drink from the bottle and a cigarette from a  pack,
Are you eating till you puke and then eating some more,
Spending thousands on new clothes that only end up on the floor,
Crawling into a sleeping bag in the back of a van,
Next to a stranger who calls himself a man,
Who you are giving yourself to only for the pleasure,
Are you numbing the pain and losing your treasure?

I only ask because you are a crystal in a dark cavern,
Hanging from the roof like a star in heaven,
And when you refuse to be translucent there is no one who can see you,
There is no one to take you down from your underground life,
Wrap you in paper and box you up tight,
And move you to a display where there is proper light.

Are you still hiding?

You Are, Are You by Joshua Grider is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at aibcs.wordpress.com.

Enough To Make Your Eyes Twitch

I stared at that snow heart for ten minuets, asked those who were with me how much they would pay to see me make my mark on it, and toyed with the idea of doing it. I didn’t however, for one reason that is far greater than anything else.

It wasn’t valentines day yet, and there was more snow on the way. If i had done it then, well it would have been wasted. There is no point to messing on love and then it getting covered over before the day when everyone on this campus but a number equal to the staff of a Rally’s will be on a date.

I mean, I have been holding in my cell waste for like three days now, and after tomorrow its going to be pretty hard to keep it from simply making me combust like a zombie full of fire crackers. I suppose in the end it might be worth it to forgo my plan because if i explode it will cause a mess of blood, which last time I checked was red (it was green once, but I blame Clinton for that).

Waning labels do not apply to zombie apocalypse situations (or Zombie-Nam)

An explosion of blood might just cause the heart in the snow to be colored red, in which case it would render my whole plan inert. If only there was some method that would turn my blood yellow… Maybe ill just use Mt. Dew…

Ive had several of these dreams in the last few months, some with girls in them, some with no implications just a very very nervous feeling accompanying them. What concerns me is that they prompt me to think about things I don’t really care to think about, things I would rather ignore and lock away in the back of my head.

Whats wrong with entertaining these thoughts, these concepts, these ideas? They are dangerous to the way that I act and appear to others, the way that people will view me, and my social status. And this in itself is the issue that bothers me so much. As a Christian I make my life about being out of place, and in your face. I try to be counter-culture, to push things to the limit and ask those tough questions that no one will ask for fear of offending others or being politically incorrect.

So how can I say that I am accomplishing this while I am haunted at night by my failures? I cant really say that, but I can say I am trying, i try to give those thoughts more time now, even if the actions associated with the concepts are hard to carry out and slow to move.

This isn’t to say that all these dreams are of a serious nature, I am pretty sure some of them are just misguided fever dreams of a life I wish I could live, a girl I wish I had to nuts to ask out, a place I wish I could go to. Being 19 I have only gone from one awkward stage in life to another. There is the stage where you are a teenager, and you are an adult but expected to act like a kid, and now I am physically an adult, but mentally a 13 year old with a suitcase of cotton candy and a wicked diagnoses of ADHD.

I have been feeling the pressure to grow up a lot lately, something I am not a huge fan of. I feel rather lost in this process. This does not go without mentioning that the alienation felt at my school is due in large part to the fact that socioeconomic status here is dependent on if you are dating/engaged/married or single. Single people here are often looked to for some kind of outside wisdom, like we are a sage living on a summit who watch the movements of all the others and come up with creative solutions to their problems.

What if we have a problem? I am better friends with several other of the minority of single guys here on campus, and it seems that the last week or so we have had a real opening up to each other where we expressed our concern that there were a lot of people floundering and asking us for advice and through this we ourselves are floundering.

That is not to say that asking for help is the wrong thing to do. Just to say that there seems to be an incomplete circle of help here in the world of Bible College Land. Something that seems to be growing closer to a solution than a year and a half ago when I was here, but still pretty bad. There is  a lot of socioeconomic separation that is bridged by sports and other campus activities, but I still cant help but feel that there is still a group out there trying to fight this community that is being sought out by so many.

How exactly do you fight a community that is trying to grow? Its pretty simple actually, a lot of people here don’t even know they are doing it. The opposite of community is devision, this can be determined from reading how Adam communed, or had community, with God while he was in the garden. But when man fell, God separated him from Himself. Thus division is opposite of community.

So how is division caused in most modern situations where racism, predigests, and class divisions don’t typically stand in the way? Simply, gossip. Gossip is a rampant monster on this campus, something that tears through the potential impact we could have on the local community and the world like a double edged sword. I have watched it time and again ruin the reputations, relationships, and hearts of people here on campus.

Are we not on this earth to make relationships for Christ? Are we not here to make disciples? Is that not the great commission in itself?Then how do we stand around talking behind the backs of others, telling stories that make them look foolish or demean them? I know I am guilty of this, I will be the first to raise my hand to the question of guilt. So many here think its in innocence, that its only a joke, a comment, a quip and then its done. How does that change the way that the person you made that comment to looks at the person you made it about? These are things we need to be asking ourselves daily.

Back to my topic, the dreams. When I dream about people here on campus, there are those who are clean and always make my dream a brighter place, and those who I fear, because I know they know no bounds in their deceit. Deceit is one of those things we call sins, and the reward for that is death. Not only death eternal, but death of your friendships, of the amount of patience people have for you, and eventually your popularity. People here will only tolerate so much, and I am pretty close to my line. If you don’t have a line, draw one.

Anyway, one thing he loved to rant about instead of what I paid to learn about was how methane was killing our ozone, not carbon moronzide, or whatever it is. He would talk about how the Chinese were growing too much rice or blah blah, point was, I think he was a racist.

But at the moment, I happen to agree with him. At least, in that methane kills all living creatures on the planet, by the planet I mean the guys dorm, and by living creatures, I mean those who don’t sleep. What happens when you don’t sleep? You start experiencing weird crap. Things that both confirm and deny your insanity. Like these shenanigans that suddenly appeared on my WLOITTHAN. Your asking, what is a WLOITTHAN, and im telling you, its that snake thing in the garbage compactor of the cell block in the death star, now quit talking while I am blogging, its super rude.

Now that we have managed to get you to shut up, I can type in peace. So that showed up, right after a fix for all the crashes on my computer (DARN THEE CYBERDYNE!!!) appears in my twitter feed. Twitter is by far more useful than a WLOITTHAN, for one thing, it never tries to eat you, for another, it never smells like garbage.

Methane is something that can only be combated by a mass amount of air freshener and surplus WWII Russian gas masks. Both of these things I no longer own, so I am franticly searching for a survivor man episode about dorm life. I wonder how he starts a fire with a mini fridge and a shoelace?

I mean, what are your first thoughts when you see a full grown man wearing a full face mask and carrying a shovel? Exactly, “I am either watching a B rate comedy about a group of super powerless super hero’s, or I am about to be bank robbed.” That is what went through my mind as snow blew into my ear cavity and scared my pet cricket who lives there.

This problem is one that I simply cannot overlook. It appears to be pretty rampant. I called my brother at an unnamed top ten university and asked if there were people wearing masks shoveling his sidewalk too, he answered yes. A grim sign that the upcoming bank robber apocalypse, headed by my good friend The Great Depressionist, is imminent.

This is disconcerting to me, because beyond the fact that they were shoveling, there is now more snow, so it seems they were robbing me of my time in writing this, maybe they were just casing the joint, and if so id like to know how exactly you steal a sidewalk.

I remember that I saw this same thing several years ago in high school and the very next week our entire gym disappeared. I am still not sure how they did it, but I bet that Chris Angel was somehow involved in that shenanigan.